Without a car, Aidan Miller gets to avoid the recent roadway drama many Atlantans are now experiencing. But not being car-dependent has created another problem for the Old Fourth Ward resident.
Miller lives just a few miles from work and uses Lyft to get around, but he has household essentials delivered through Amazon Prime. It might have worked out well if he lived anywhere but at the end of Angier Avenue, a street that is intersected by a splash pad at the neighborhood playground.
The United States Postal Service (along with Fedex, UPS and the AJC newspaper delivery) all assume the road ends at the park and that his address is incorrect, so back to the sender goes his toothpaste, toilet paper, magazine subscriptions and other mail.
"Only one of the USPS employees in the area knows we even exist, so we can only get mail on days he is working," Miller said. He's called the post office and chatted with the carrier, who acknowledges that there is a problem when new mail carriers work the route. "All I can do is re-order, and hope I get the usual guy on the day it is to be delivered," said Miller.
Miller and his dozen or so neighbors on Angier Avenue may have special circumstances, but they aren't alone in their mail delivery woes. Other residents serviced by the post office at 822 Ralph McGill Boulevard NE, in particular, have similar complaints. Mail is mis-delivered, returned to sender, tampered with and lost, said residents.
In Dec. 2015, Rep. John Lewis (D-Atlanta) and Atlanta Postmaster, Omar Coleman, held a meeting with neighbors and assured them changes were coming , but residents said little has changed. A post on the social media app, NextDoor, continues to draw new comments from locals who are having issues getting their mail.
Lewis did not respond to a request for comment. In a statement, the postal service said it has recently made management changes and readjusted delivery routes at Ralph McGill Post Office to benefit customers.
Postal service officials encourage customers in VA-Hi to call 404-765-7702 during business hours with questions about mail service, as well as utilizing the national hotline 800-275-8777 and completing customer insight surveys at the bottom of receipts after purchases at post office locations. Improvements, which began in 2015, are ongoing, said post office officials.
One solution that came out of the meeting was to put bar codes on mailboxes to track if the mail carrier has come, what time he or she arrives and how long it takes to deliver the mail. It took several months, but Stuart Platt got a bar code last summer.
"The folks in the post office have tried to be more responsive," he said. "It seems I am getting my mail every day." As a result, Platt has become the neighborhood resource for how to resolve postal service issues.
The 26-year resident is a heavy mail user who runs several businesses. He was determined to get his concerns addressed. When he asked the mail carriers what to do, they would tell him to call management. He called management and was issued six to 10 reference numbers for each of his complaints.
"When you call customer service they should be enabled to take care of a problem. I should not have to bring in a US senator or congressman to solve these issues," Platt said.
But that is exactly what ended up happening. Platt said he contacted the offices of Congressman Lewis, U.S. Sen. David Perdue and U.S. Sen. Johnny Isakson, told them what he had done so far and asked what else he needed to do. That's when he began to hear from USPS to resolve the issues, he said.
At the town hall meeting hosted by Lewis , mail carriers said there was no way they could deliver all the mail they are given in a day.
"They said they would get more manpower and make sure people answered their phones and make sure mail got delivered," said Platt. But across the country, since 2008, USPS has been consolidating operations for delivery and retail and reducing the size of their workforce to reduce costs.
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